Mr Lee understood vital role of US leadership and forged life-long friendships
US President Barack Obama with Mr Lee Kuan Yew in the Oval Office in 2009. Every trip Mr Lee made to America brought him new insights and increased his admiration for its system. Photo: Reuters
Mr Lee Kuan Yew admired America’s faith in free enterprise and open competition, factors which made its economy and society the most dynamic in the world, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. But the elder Mr Lee was also not an uncritical fan of the United States, believing that it was not perfect and that its system could not be replicated wholesale to other countries, in particular Singapore. Prime Minister Lee made these comments at a private memorial service held in New York City for his father on Thursday morning (US time). The memorial was organised by Mr Ray Dalio, founder of the investment firm Bridgewater Associates and Robert Rubin, former US Secretary of the Treasury, and attended by guests including former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, an old friend of the late Mr Lee, as well as former US Ambassador to Singapore Jon Huntsman. Prime Minister Lee’s comments, delivered on his behalf at the memorial by Singapore’s Ambassador to the US Ashok Kumar Mirpuri, are as follows:
Dear friends, thank you for being here today to remember and honour my father, the founding Prime Minister of Singapore — Mr Lee Kuan Yew. Thank you to Ray Dalio and Secretary Rubin for organising the event. Thank you to Dr Kissinger and Ambassador Huntsman for paying tribute to him.
Looking back, one could say that my father’s relationship with the US started in the fall of 1967. That was when he made his first official visit as Prime Minister of a young Singapore. He had visited the US once before that, in 1962. That trip had been to the United Nations, to present the case before the UN Decolonisation Committee for Singapore’s merger with Malaya to form the Federation of Malaysia. By 1967 the merger had failed, and Singapore had left Malaysia and become an independent republic on its own.
This time, Mr Lee visited the US with a different purpose. The Vietnam War was heating up. US military involvement in Vietnam had deeply polarised American society. Mr Lee sought to impress on Americans that their stand was crucial for the future of South-east Asia. He argued that US military involvement in Vietnam bought the region time, formed a bulwark against the spread of Communism and afforded South-east Asian countries, including Singapore, urgently needed space to consolidate and develop.
During that trip, he did a live interview on the Meet The Press show. It was quintessential Lee Kuan Yew. He stood his ground, and expressed his views logically and eloquently. You can find the clip on YouTube, and it is still compelling viewing after nearly 50 years.
CONFIDENCE IN AMERICAN CREATIVITY AND RESILIENCE
Mr Lee understood the vital role of American leadership. He knew that without the US presence, there could be no stability or prosperity in Asia. It was a view he steadfastly held for the rest of his life. On that trip in 1967, President Lyndon Johnson presented Mrs Lee with a jewellery box. Mrs Lee kept the box and stored in it, among other things, the name-card of a bicycle shop. This was no ordinary bicycle shop. It was the cutout address for Mr Lee’s contact with the Plen. The Plen, short for Plenipotentiary, was the name Mr Lee gave a senior underground leader of the Malayan Communist Party who had negotiated with him, ultimately fruitlessly. Now that it is 2015, I guess you can say that the US succeeded in containing Communism in South-east Asia. That 10-day visit to the US left a strong impression on Mr Lee. It piqued his curiosity and began his long relationship with the US.
He felt that through his life he had come to know Britain and the British people. We were a British colony and he studied in Cambridge as well as spent time in London. But he did not know the United States, which was a superpower and the leader of the free world, and would play a major role in Asia for a long time to come.
Over the years, my father would make many more visits to the US. On every trip, he would call on the sitting President and meet his principal aides, especially their Secretaries of State, Defence and Treasury, and National Security Advisor. He used those opportunities to get a read on the thinking in Washington. He would also speak as a friend and give the US an objective assessment, not just on Singapore-US bilateral relations, but on developments in Asia.
One continuing focus was the US’ vital relationship with China. Mr Lee would also take the opportunity to meet American business leaders and captains of industry, to make a pitch to them to invest in Singapore, and to exchange views on the international economy and geopolitics. After he stepped down as Prime Minister, he took on appointments on international advisory boards of J P Morgan and Citibank. He found the discussions stimulating and appreciated the opportunity to keep in touch with developments in the US.
Every trip Mr Lee made brought him new insights and increased his admiration for the US system. He admired America’s faith in free enterprise and open competition. He spoke highly of your country’s ability to attract talent, and your inclusiveness and openness that made the American economy and society the most dynamic in the world. He was grateful for the generosity of the American spirit, which made US dominance in Asia a benign and welcome source of stability and prosperity for so many Asian countries. Even when America experienced crises and downturns, Mr Lee never wavered in his confidence that American creativity and resilience, its ability constantly to reinvent itself, would enable the US to overcome any challenge and retain its leadership role in the world.
But Mr Lee was not an uncritical fan of the US. He saw that not everything was perfect, and did not believe that the US system could be replicated wholesale to other countries, and in particular to Singapore. He thought that “a wealthy and solidly established nation like America can roll with such a system”, because it can afford a certain degree of risk. He saw America as a great country, not just because of its political system, but because the greatest things of America took place outside the system: Not just in DC, but in the universities, in business, in research laboratories, in local communities.
He knew from experience that the best ideas taken to extremes become dysfunctional. And so, he differed with American conventional wisdom on the issue of the role of the media as a Fourth Estate, and the relevance of Western liberal democracy in Asia.
He believed that every country had to find its own way that suited its history and society. He was always prepared to defend his views, and subject himself to debate and questioning.
He addressed American newspaper editors, gave interviews to The Wall Street Journal, appeared on the Charlie Rose show, and held dialogues at the Council of Foreign Relations.
Not everyone would concede the argument, but he persuaded many Americans that he spoke from experience and conviction, and that he had a point.
He relished those occasions for him to put his view across and to spar intellectually. It earned him many admirers, even among those who did not fully agree with him.
MANY OLD AND TRUSTED FRIENDS
But it was the openness, generosity and warmth of the American people that left the deepest impression on my father.
After his first visit in 1967, he decided to return for a short sabbatical in the US. The following year he spent two months in Harvard (from November to December 1968), where he had the opportunity to interact with American scholars in various fields. In his memoirs, he recounted that his greatest benefit from this sabbatical was not more knowledge, but the contacts and friendships he made.
It was at Harvard that Mr Lee first met Dr Henry Kissinger, a memorable encounter that Henry has recounted many times. Henry would become one of his closest friends.
Over the years, Mr Lee made a great many friends around the world, but his American friends counted among those who meant the most to him. They opened their minds and their hearts to him, and brought him into their personal worlds.
Let me just cite a few examples:
a. Dr and Mrs Kissinger opened their home in Kent, Connecticut, to my parents, where they spent weekends in thoughtful, stimulating company.
b. President George Herbert Walker Bush generously hosted them at his family home in Kennebunkport in Maine over a weekend.
c. George Shultz brought Dr Kissinger, Helmut Schmidt and Mr Lee together for the first time after they had all attended the Bohemian Grove in 1982, forging a close circle of friendship that endured for more than 40 years.
d. When Mr Lee wanted to understand the Mormon culture better, the Huntsman family hosted him in Salt Lake City and Deer Park in Utah.
e. Professor Alan Heimert, the late Master of Eliot House in Harvard, looked after my father during his sabbatical there, and was also very kind to me years later when I spent a year in Harvard.
f. Many US Ambassadors to Singapore, such as Stapleton Roy, Jon Huntsman and Steven Green, kept in touch with Mr Lee long after their terms ended. Ambassador Green was gracious with his hospitality and my parents spent time with him and Dorothea in their California home.
g. Many of you who are here today would surely have your own stories and experiences of Mr Lee. I remember one souvenir my father brought home from his 1967 trip to the US. It was a gift from LBJ (former US President Lyndon B Johnson), a portable turntable with vinyl LP records of George Gershwin’s music, including the Rhapsody in Blue and An American in Paris. I am not sure we made much of this sample of American technology and culture at the time, but looking back, that gift symbolised America’s spirit of dynamism, spontaneity, generosity and warmth — the American values that my father greatly admired all these years.
A politician does not often have the opportunity to form deep friendships. Indeed it is said that in statecraft there are no permanent friends, only permanent interests. But Mr Lee had many old and trusted American friends, and saw the US as a strategic friend of Singapore. Thank you all for the friendship and hospitality you showed towards him.
When Mr Lee left us in March, Singaporeans expressed their grief and gratitude in a national outpouring of emotion. His passing caused a renewed realisation of all that we owed to Mr Lee and his team, the first generation of leaders who built the nation. Your memorial service today will be appreciated by Singaporeans.
Singapore and the US will be celebrating 50 years of diplomatic relations next year. Our ties are as strong and substantial as they have ever been. I would like to thank each of you, who in your own way, has been a good friend of Singapore.
Lastly, my family and I express our deepest appreciation to all of you for being here today to remember my father. He was not a sentimental man, but I know he would have been deeply honoured and touched by your presence.
